Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-04-23
MOLLIE FANCHER.
HER WONDERFUL EXISTENCE
DURING TWENTY YEARS.
Who Has Lived for Years
Without Eating.

Fancher is going 10 die. For twenty years
she has resisted death in the most remark
able way, and now an accident has occurred
which the physicians say viii bring the
end in a few days. Miss Fancher was
lifted, as usual. from her bed in order to
have the linen changed, when the attend
ants accidentally dropped her on the floor.
She struck violently on her head and was
rendered senseless. Her extraordinary
nervous constitution was seriously shocked,
and the doctors who have had charge OF
her case for long time declare that she
cannot recover.
If Miss Fancher and her family had been
willing to have her wonderful history gem
orally known, or made the subject of scien-
tifc inquiry, the world would have been
divided into two factions and everybody
would have been partisan of Ole side or
the other; for such are the circumstances
that no one could have failed to hear of
them. One faction would have insisted
that there was trickery and deception in
yolved in the case and thus dismissed it
with contempt; the other would have de-
clared it the most asto unding, mysterious
disorder ever known. AS it is, the facts
that are admitted are enough TO cause bit
ter dissensions in the medical profession,
and to cause laymen TO marvel when they
learn them. And by admitting facts is
meant those that are authenticated beyond
di belief If there were not physicians of
good repute and clergymen to attest them,
they would have strong circumstantial cor
robor, ii in the fact the family has stead
lily avoided any scheme that would lead to
the notorietv of the unfortunate woman,
much less to any financial profit that might
be derived from awakening interest in her
In 1867 Miss Fancher, then 16 years old,
was the victim of two or three accidents
Once she was thrown from horse and at
another time fell from street car and was
badly bruised The last affair injured her
spine, and as a partial result she has been
confined to her bed ever since Her par
ents we're dead, but she found the most
constant care at the hands of relatives
The best physicians were summoned to at
tend her, most of whom arr now living to
attest the strange development of her dis
order Her nervous system seemed to be
literally wrecked She had long and fran
tic nervous COMMISSIONS in which she APP
parently suffered excruciating agony. She
came out OF these spasms insensible, and
would lie passive for time until the chao-
tic agitations began again. Nothing that
was done for her produced any favora-
bic effect, and the physicians be-
lieved that she would presently die from
the violence of her sufferings But after
passing through several times more than
would have been accepted as sufficient to
cause death in ordinary people, it began
to appear that her senses were one
by ole leaving her. Sight, hearing
and feeling departed, and her periods
of rest became longer and more fire.
duent. Once, in one Of these periods she
was declared dead, but her friends did not
accept the decision and watched her pa
tiently and anxiously for twenty days At
the expiration of that time she returned to
life and consciousness. Her power of
speech was restored, as well as her other
faculties, and she told strange stories of
what she had experienced during her cata-
leptic condition. After few days she
went into another trance, but it did not
last long. The semblance to death was
even more marked than formerly, and the
return of life was as sudden and unex-
pected. The occurrences were all within
the first two months of her illness, and
perhaps the strangest fact of all is that in
this time she took no nourishment what
ever. DR.. S. Fleet Spler was the chief
physician in charge of her case, and ne
has continued to be until this dav. He
took pains to drop in when he was not ex-
pected at his patients house, and often adj
ministered emetics, and the result invari-
ably proved that Miss Fancher had eaten
nothing. To a remarkable extent this fast
has continued ever since. At the end of
the two months she could retain a small
quantity of light food but during the
twenty years that have elapsed it is said,
on good authority, that she has not eaten
enough TO keep baby alive for a week.
One day early in her illness she went
into rigid trance with her head resting on
her right arm. The trance endured four
days, but it was nine years before she mod
fled her attitude or the position of her
limbs. During this period she had many
frances, bat when she came out of them
the power of speech returned to her, and
she conversed intelligently with her friends
She told graphic tales of visions of the con-
ventional paradise, streets of gold shining
white angels, heavenly harpers, and the
like and she insisted that her angel
friends were with her constantly. In
many respects she spoke after the manner
of spirituallstic mediums, and delivered
messages from departed friends to the liv-
ing. But no report of this was allowed to
go from the house for years, and Miss
Fancher even expressed a mild aversion
to deliberate experiments in the way of
communing with departed friends. This,
in fact, has been her attitude throughout
all her long illness she was perfectly will
ing to tell what she saw. but did not be-
lieve in inducing deliberately the return of
her strange experiences, or the exercise of
her mysterious faculties. For, as her dis
ease developed during the nine years she
exhibited faculty, called for the lack of a
better name second sight. The stories told
about her powers in this direction ap-
proach the absolutely fabulous, but many
of them are SO well authenticated that
they cannot be entirely rejected. She
never opened her eyes, but if she had it
would not have assisted her in repeating
the contents of an unopened letter Just
brought in from the Postoffice. That feat
has been a common one with her. But
however much credence one maybe inclined
to place in such anecdotes, the scientific
data are equally remarkable Her ordinary
faculties came and went in the utmost dis
order. One day she could talk, move all
her body except the right arm under her
head. taste and feel without warning, one
or all of these faculties would leave her.
1t might be that she ceased talking in the
midst of a sentence; or that she ceased to
hear; or to feel or all these three together;
and In addition would come a rigidity of
the body, death dampness all over her,
and all the appearance of a corpse. This
might endure several days, and meantime
the only sign of life, but a good one, would
be faint beating of the heart. She became
so thin from the neck downt that she seemed
merely skin and bone. She could take no
solid food at all, and asked occasionally for
fruit juice with which she moistened her
lips. And that no detail of the marvellous
may be lacking, she was never covered by
anything heavier than sheet, even in win
ter, on account of her extreme sensitive
ness to heat.
Such in the rough was the character of
her existence at that period of her illness.
and when the muscles Of her body again
relaxed, and she at last changed her posi-
ton, the nine years vanished from her
memory like the light dreams of single